Tcw Group

Los Angeles-based money manager TCW Group said Monday that Chief Executive Robert D. Beyer would step down at the end of June as the company prepares to separate from its French parent. TCW, parent of Trust Co. of the West, manages about $100 billion in stocks and bonds. The company has been majority-owned by French bank Societe Generale since 2001. But in January, Societe adopted a restructuring plan that calls for TCW to be spun off in the next few years.

Star bond fund manager Jeffrey Gundlach is used to winning, but he just suffered a $10-million hit in the most unexpected way. Returning to his posh Santa Monica home after a business trip to New York this week, he found a blank space on the wall where a cherished landscape by William Wendt once hung. He then noticed more blank spaces where he had part of his multimillion-dollar art collection. The crooks even drove away in his red Porsche Carrera - and shut the garage door on the way out. Gundlach, heralded on Wall Street for his bond investing prowess, is the founder of DoubleLine Capital in Los Angeles.

Now on trial in an L.A. courtroom: a classic case of Wall Street greed. That's the picture lawyers for both sides painted for jurors in the first round of the high-stakes court battle between L.A. money manager TCW Group and its former investment chief. Jeffrey Gundlach, the star bond fund manager who was fired by TCW in December 2009, was ousted because he was plotting to destroy the company by setting up a rival firm with secrets stolen from TCW, TCW's lawyers said in their opening statement Thursday.

After three years clouded by key staff defections and ownership uncertainties, Los Angeles asset manager TCW Group Inc. will move ahead with a high-profile new partner - private equity firm Carlyle Group. French banking giant Societe Generale agreed Thursday to sell its majority stake in TCW to two Carlyle funds and to TCW's managers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the companies said the transaction would boost the ownership of TCW employees from 17% to 40%. TCW, founded in 1971 by Robert Day as Trust Co. of the West, manages investments for some of the nation's largest pension funds, universities and other big investors.

The French parent of TCW Group Inc. said Tuesday that the Los Angeles investment firm is not for sale. The declaration by Societe Generale came in response to a report by Bloomberg News, which quoted anonymous sources saying the French bank may put the U.S. money manager up for sale, or potentially strike a deal for a management-led buyout. "Societe Generale's plans for TCW have not changed," SocGen said in a statement. "TCW is not for sale, and we continue to believe that TCW is on a trajectory for strong and sustained growth.

September 17, 2011 | By Tom Petruno and Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times

He was cast as the epitome of Wall Street greed, but in the end a jury sided with star money manager Jeffrey Gundlach's claim that he wasn't paid enough. In a bitter court battle that pitted Gundlach against his longtime employer, Los Angeles investment giant TCW Group Inc., jurors delivered verdicts Friday that left both sides claiming victory. The panel largely agreed with TCW's side of the case, yet ordered the firm to write a $67-million check to Gundlach and three lieutenants for back pay, while TCW's own demand for damages was denied.

DoubleLine Capital, the L.A. money management firm founded by ex-TCW Group executive Jeffrey Gundlach in December, said Friday that its flagship bond mutual fund had accumulated $1 billion in assets in less than three months. The milestone may help Gundlach as he seeks to attract investors who had invested with him at TCW before the firm ousted him in a bitter breakup Dec. 4. The DoubleLine Total Return Bond fund has been the fastest-growing new mutual fund of 2010, according to Morningstar Inc. The fund, which invests mostly in mortgage-backed securities, was launched April 6 and is up 7.4% since then, according to Bloomberg News data.

Ousted by Los Angles financial giant TCW Group, star bond fund manager Jeffrey Gundlach on Monday turned to a firm whose executives had their own bitter breakup with TCW nearly 15 years ago. Gundlach said that he was launching an investment firm called DoubleLine with help from Oaktree Capital Management, a major global investor in bonds and private equity. L.A.-based Oaktree was formed by Howard Marks, Bruce Karsh and a handful of other TCW money managers in 1995, in a move that TCW founder Robert Day at the time branded as "disloyal at the very least."

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc.'s fifth-largest shareholder, Los Angeles-based investment manager TCW Group Inc., sold almost its entire stake in the broadcaster, according to a regulatory filing. TCW had owned 5.2% of XM's stock as of March 31.

A group of money managers within TCW Group Inc. said Tuesday that they reached a deal with the Los Angeles company to split off their $11.5-billion operation. The agreement, which had been expected, will reestablish Crescent Capital Group as a stand-alone investment firm that provides debt financing to public and private companies. Crescent was co-founded in 1991 by Mark Attanasio and two other former executives of junk bond giant Drexel Burnham Lambert, which filed for bankruptcy protection in 1990.

Star bond trader Jeffrey Gundlach and his former employer, TCW Group Inc., said they settled a lawsuit over his firing in 2009 and allegations that he stole trade secrets to set up his own firm. The two sides issued a joint statement but did not release terms of the deal. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this article said the settlement pertained to one part of the case. TCW said it covers all claims. TCW, the Los Angeles-based money management unit of French banking giant Societe Generale, and Gundlach were locked in an often bitter court battle this year.

The French parent of TCW Group Inc. said Tuesday that the Los Angeles investment firm is not for sale. The declaration by Societe Generale came in response to a report by Bloomberg News, which quoted anonymous sources saying the French bank may put the U.S. money manager up for sale, or potentially strike a deal for a management-led buyout. "Societe Generale's plans for TCW have not changed," SocGen said in a statement. "TCW is not for sale, and we continue to believe that TCW is on a trajectory for strong and sustained growth.

Societe Generale, France's second-biggest bank, is weighing whether to put its U.S. asset manager TCW Group up for sale, said people with knowledge of the situation. One option may be a management-led buyout of the business, said two of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is private. Societe Generale may decide not to sell TCW and could still pursue an initial public offering for the unit, the people said. Los Angeles-based TCW may be valued at about $1 billion, one person said.

September 17, 2011 | By Tom Petruno and Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times

He was cast as the epitome of Wall Street greed, but in the end a jury sided with star money manager Jeffrey Gundlach's claim that he wasn't paid enough. In a bitter court battle that pitted Gundlach against his longtime employer, Los Angeles investment giant TCW Group Inc., jurors delivered verdicts Friday that left both sides claiming victory. The panel largely agreed with TCW's side of the case, yet ordered the firm to write a $67-million check to Gundlach and three lieutenants for back pay, while TCW's own demand for damages was denied.

After a six-week court case of often head-spinning complexity, the bitter legal battle between star L.A. bond fund manager Jeffrey Gundlach and his former employer, TCW Group Inc., is in the hands of the jury. Their mission: Try to decide which of two very well-heeled combatants deserves potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from the other after TCW ousted Gundlach nearly two years ago. Mindful that the jurors most likely can't personally relate to the huge sums of money involved, TCW attorneys tried to reduce the case to issues of simple right and wrong in their closing arguments Tuesday.

Money manager Jeffrey Gundlach testified that he met with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. before TCW Group Inc. fired him in 2009 and that he sought advice on how to improve his situation at the Los Angeles asset management firm. Gundlach was the final witness in the trial over whether he stole TCW's trade secrets before starting his own company or TCW fired him to avoid paying management and performance fees owed to him as the firm's chief investment officer. He told jurors in state court in Los Angeles on Monday that he was advised by Goldman Sachs either to arrange for better corporate governance terms so that he could stay at TCW, attempt a management buyout of TCW or negotiate his own departure.

Southland Money Managers to Merge: Los Angeles-based TCW Group, parent of Trust Co. of the West, said it has acquired private Crescent Capital Corp., a firm TCW had turned to for high-yield bond management expertise last April when TCW's own high-yield team left to start a new firm. Crescent adds $1.4 billion in assets to the $50 billion TCW already manages.

Private-equity giant Carlyle Group is buying TCW Group Inc. from the French bank Societe Generale, a deal that will give management and employees of TCW a 40% stake in the asset manager. Los Angeles-based TCW manages investments for some of the nation's largest pension funds, universities and other big investors. Financial terms of the transaction were not announced in a statement from the companies Thursday morning. The long-rumored deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013.

Money manager Jeffrey Gundlach testified in a trial against TCW Group Inc. over his 2009 firing that he had negotiated, in contracts going back to 1992, specific conditions under which the firm could terminate him "for cause. " "I wanted to make sure I couldn't be fired out of the blue," Gundlach told jurors Wednesday in state court in Los Angeles. He also said that since 1989, he was entitled to accrued compensation if he was fired by TCW. Gundlach, 51, who worked at TCW for 25 years and was named Morningstar's fixed income manager of the year in 2006, says the Los Angeles-based unit of Societe Generale fired him to avoid having to pay management and performance fees for the distressed-asset funds that his group managed and that went "through the roof.